On Monday, September 29, 2014, Hosnieh Rafiee wrote:
. Sometimes I see it is not a sequential numbers for new RFCs.
IMHO the way the RFC number is done is just complicated for
history/discussions and difficult to remember (there is possibility of
error in discussions among participants when referring mistakenly with
wrong number). Especially in the future where we will have many RFCs
and many updates which we need to refer to in discussions. RFC number were
done not to continue in future with very large numbers.
I understand the RFC-document mentioning Request For Comment, meaning as
having availability to be commented on and update at all times. I see the
RFC-numbers with no value or meaning, I think we should have more meaning
involved to help the reference number to be remembered or to help
in discussions.
We have RFC version zero we may need a new version. We can re-structure the
RFC-number so we can say Area (A one digit), WG (WW two digits). The RFC
numbers in digits meaning (1AWWSS). This structure type is 1 (or version
1), our current structure with no meaning can have type 0.
For example for the new structure/version/series RFC, all start with 1 and
for all security area RFCs to follow with 9, routing area follow with 5,
etc. or another example to have three first decimal digits (we may change
to hexadecimal if there were interest) to indicate meaning and the
following being their sequence number. SS can have some reserve digits for
updates purposes. If the RFC191020 is obsolete then it will have new update
to be RFC191021. If the RFC is not obsolete but just updated then we can
have normal sequence while 21 is reserved for time to obsolete 20 and have
full update 21.
Furthermore, within meetings/on-list of a WG we don't need to refer WG-RFC
with large numbers but just say in speech our SS numbers for the WG, but
when writing within draft we need to reference full number of RFC1AWWSS or
RFC02460 or RFC01.
Just thoughts to make RFC numbers with good meaning, good sequences, and
more interconnected. I don't think it is right that we
MUST remember numbers/digits that have no meanings.
Regards
AB